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Normally I’m not a raging alcoholic, but after two weeks of consecutive 13-hour days with both kids and minimal “me” time, other than the two-minute “time-out” sessions I took for myself in the bathroom, I was about to drink the two bottles of Lambic Framboise in hopes of relieving the stress from Friday Night Bedtime Battle Showdown. Normally I’d drink Patron, but I thought that’s a little too raging, Framboise a little more subtle.

When exercise doesn't cut it ... my stress reliever

In that corner: 36-pound basketball-pajama wearing three-year old accompanied by his 21-pound onesie-wearing sibling with sneaky smiles.

In this corner: The Guat, usually an upbeat sporty-spice who’s become a worn-down mom that’s accumulated more gray hairs and wrinkles this week.

If you have kids you may be familiar with battle of the bedtimes. Prior to being a guest at my mom’s house this wasn’t really an issue … maybe once in a blue moon my three-year old would act up, but I wouldn’t say it was a problem. However, recently bedtime has become such a frustrating battle that the vein in my neck has a permanent imprint from where it bulges out.

And if I don’t get him showered on time … forget about it … He’s watching Dave Letterman. A few times he stays there awake, moving around, talking to his teddy bear until ten o’clock, sometimes later. Thus leaving me with little time to wash dishes and bottles before trying to relax in front of the television.

It’s not like I like to wash dishes. In fact it’s the chore I hate the most. Some might say just leave a dirty kitchen and let it go, but I’m the type of person that needs to have an empty sink and clean kitchen before I can relax. If only my mom believed in dishwashers, but apparently those are for lazy asses. So my hands aren’t too supple, more like the hands of a carpenter who’s been on the job twenty years.

It’s been difficult to say the least. I felt like breaking down like those mom chicks from Sex & The City 2. Have you seen this?

Yeah … but they have nannies. I have myself. I am the nanny, the cook, the diaper changer, the milk producer, the bottle-go-getter, the bath time giver, the baseball pitcher, the funny-face maker, the golf caddy, the Play-Doh creator, the dancing partner to the “I Like To Move It, Move It” song, the Lego’s construction builder, the co-pilot on my son’s imaginary airplane/fire engine/submarine that fights crime, and the dog walker. That’s me … all before lunch. No nanny. No cleaning lady. Just The Guat.

So by the time I get to bedtime I’m just ready to have them pass out and go into a deep, deep sleep so that I can somehow enjoy television or just enjoy a quiet moment where nobody says anything … just silence. Quiet is awesome.

So when bedtime becomes a battle or either of them just gives me issues I get so frustrated. I don’t want to be that mom that constantly tells their kid if you don’t go to sleep right now, you won’t be able to play with any cars, monster trucks, trains or sports stuff ever again! I mean it! I’ll take them to the trash.

I tried that … it doesn’t work.

I was so desperate I was about to Google “bedtime problems with three-year olds and seven-month old babies” and hope some self-help answer would come slap me in the face.

But alas … there was no super-secret answer other than some crazy note about slipping some Children’s Benadryl into their night-time sippy cups. I don’t like having crappy frustrating endings to pleasant days. Sometimes it just sucks the awesomeness out of the day.

It has to be a phase.

That’s what I tell myself, or at least that’s what I’m hoping. After the Framboise, I tell myself tomorrow will be better and he’ll get back into his normal sleeping pattern.

I hope tomorrow gets here soon. The stores are running out of Framboise.